The Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express
its growing alarm about a series of threats
directed against journalists reporting on the
Army Intelligence Services (SIE), the National
Intelligence Service (SIN), and National
Intelligence Service advisor, Vladimiro
Montesinos. As President of Peru, and
Commander-in-Chief of the Peruvian armed forces,
we urge you to authorize an independent
investigation to determine who is responsible
for these threats and to take legal action
against any one found to have engaged in
abuses.

Among the recent
threats are the following:

Journalists who have
reported on intelligence operations have been
the subject of a series of attack articles in
Lima's tabloid press accusing them of being
communists, terrorists, and traitors. As an
organization that defends press freedom around
the world, we do not, as a matter of policy,
comment on the content of articles. However, in
this case there is evidence that the stories are
part of an orchestrated government campaign.
Often, articles published in the different
tabloids use the same language and contain
confidential and personal information about the
journalists. On May 29, the daily La
República reported that it had in its
possession two faxes sent to El Tío, one
of the tabloids, from a company owned by Augusto
Bresani, a public relations consultant who has
worked as an advisor to Army Commander General
Nicolás Hermoza. One of the faxes
contained an article that was reprinted verbatim
in the next issue of El Tío; the other
suggested possible headlines.

Angel Páez, one
of the journalists who has been attacked in the
tabloids, has also been receiving as many as
three death threats a day for several months.
Páez, who is chief of the Investigative
Unit of La República and correspondent
for the Argentinean daily Clarín, has
reported frequently on the military, including
the operation carried out by the SIE to monitor
the phone calls of journalists and opposition
politicians. The calls have been placed to his
office and to his cell phone; sometimes military
music is playing in the background.

A number of other
prominent reporters, all of whom have covered
abuses by the intelligence services, have
received either telephone or written threats.
Among those who have reported such threats to
CPJ are César Hildebrandt of Canal 13;
Luis Iberico, Gonzalo Quijandria, and Cecilia
Valenzuela of Canal 9; and Fernando Rospigliosi
and Gustavo Mohme of La República.

Journalists from the
daily El Comercio who were reporting on a secret
plan code-named "Tsunami 97" to investigate
businessman Baruch Ivcher on tax charges,
received threatening phone calls, in late April
and early May, both before and after the story
was published. Ivcher, who was born in Israel
but was a naturalized citizen of Peru, was
stripped of his citizenship last year after the
television station he owned, Canal 2, aired a
series of controversial reports on the
intelligence services. The station made public
Vladimiro Montesinos' tax returns showing that
he earned far more than his government salary;
it reported on alleged links between Montesinos
and drug traffickers; and it aired a major
feature on SIE officer Leonor La Rosa who
alleged that she had been tortured by fellow
military intelligence officers who accused her
of leaking information about a secret plan to
murder top journalists in Peru.

As an organization of
journalists dedicated to the defense or our
colleagues around the world, we are deeply
troubled by this pattern of threats. Journalists
in Peru suspect that the campaign against the
press is being conducted by the members of the
intelligence services, specifically Vladimiro
Montesinos. We urge you to authorize an
independent investigation to determine who is
responsible for the threats. If allowed to go
unchallenged, these incidents could call into
grave question Peru's tolerance for a free and
critical press.